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Topic: I don't hear many EA stations. WHY? (Read 1039 times)

Don't get me wrong, I have worked EA stations from G but I hear far, far fewer EAs than DL or I stations. There has to be a reason for this. I have a clear takeoff to the South.

I checked on the reverse beacon network for EA spots from G. The result was around 40 spots of EA stations from G in the last 36 hours, spread across 40m, 20m and 15m. That's not very many. There were no spots on the WARC bands. I'm guessing that's because there are no G skimmers on those bands: less than useful! Would anyone like to share an opinion with the Ship's Cat as to why EA stations are a little sparse in G?

Don't get me wrong, I have worked EA stations from G but I hear far, far fewer EAs than DL or I stations. There has to be a reason for this. I have a clear takeoff to the South.

I checked on the reverse beacon network for EA spots from G. The result was around 40 spots of EA stations from G in the last 36 hours, spread across 40m, 20m and 15m. That's not very many. There were no spots on the WARC bands. I'm guessing that's because there are no G skimmers on those bands: less than useful! Would anyone like to share an opinion with the Ship's Cat as to why EA stations are a little sparse in G?

Vic /kinda puzzled & wondering about skip zones...

Could it be that EA is just a bit too close Vic for sky wave? I don't normally hear many G stations on HF from up here, though I've had the odd surprise when first-hop has has been short and resulted in very strong signals.In a week or so I expect to hear and work plenty of EAs of 6m when the Es season opens up.

Could it be that EA is just a bit too close Vic for sky wave? <snip...>

I was thinking along the same lines, Dave. Until I looked at a EU map. I know map projections produce distortions but in general, Northern Italy is closer to G than the northernmost part of Spain but all of Spain lies between the same latitudes as the remainder of Italy, so how come I get lotsa I stations all the way down to Sicily but nowhere near so many EA stations? The imbalance is odd. And skip zones change per band so I'm baffled.

I remember reading quite a while ago that transequatorial propagation isn't so grand from G and was just wondering if that can be generalised to southerly propagation rather than transeq. I'm probably revealing more ignorance than is comfortable but I am curious.

I started wondering about this propagation stuff when I made the miserable discovery that a number of cultural missions in Manchester have closed down. The Goethe Institut has closed, as has the Italian Cultural Institute: they were the best for learning German and Italian. I have a little German and can get by: I quite fancied a new challenge and Italian fitted the bill nicely but my only option now for Italian is expensive private lessons or University, which would be overkill.

There is still a Spanish cultural mission in Manchester and the daytime fees are reasonable but there seems little point in learning the language if I can't use it on air very often. Hence my enquiries. I do have a little Spanish but it's all mediaeval! (Some decades ago I helped an amiable Spaniard who was working for his doctorate. He was working out of El Escorial and he needed help in setting up a way of codifying on computer old Spanish manuscripts on the travels of John of Burgundy. I was a bit of a computer buff and spent several weeks on the project, which was basically databasing.)

So, back to the question in hand: where do the EA stations congregate?

Hey there, yes were are they? I looked at RBN and itr is sometimes a lot of them, but hard to hear them here also. One evening it was a lots of them at 40 m, maybee some local contest. Are they all on the beach?

Hey there, yes were are they? I looked at RBN and itr is sometimes a lot of them, but hard to hear them here also. One evening it was a lots of them at 40 m, maybee some local contest. Are they all on the beach?

Nice idea Jenny!! Does SM have any RBN skimmers on WARC bands? We don't seem to have any of them here in G-land so I can't check WARC via RBN.

Edit: I looked at RBN & I saw there are 2 SM skimmers who look at WARC bands, but they don't see so many EAs. I did also see that there is one GW skimmer on WARC: same again, few EAs.

I looked at the QRZ entry for the GW skimmer and found it is on the isle of Anglesey, about the same latitude as me. A note on the QRZ Bio said not to ask the GW OM to complete QSOs on the ON4KST service. I didn't know what that was so I checked. ON4KST.org runs several Chats for different bands: what do you know? The Chat most popular with EA OPs is 50MHz, more EA OMs there than any other band Chat.

Maybe our EA friends are sunning themselves on the 50MHz beach!! My simple wire antennas don't work well on 50MHz End Edit

Hey there, yes were are they? I looked at RBN and itr is sometimes a lot of them, but hard to hear them here also. One evening it was a lots of them at 40 m, maybee some local contest. Are they all on the beach?

Well, i dont know anything about the Chats i am only nagging ;-). And yes they are probibly on the 50 MHz beach and counting sand growels.

Logged

Best regards, 72 de SM5MEK, Jenny.

DF5WW

That´s the problems between location and conditions. If you hear some loud I stations and no EA it could be that you have good SporadicE to I. For F2 those countrys are to close but it could be that you have longpath F2 to EA and SporadicE, then it could be that the signal is notched out by himself.

A G station which is located 10 miles far from you could have other condx as you and thats the "little" things which make all these differences.